


Watch Your Step

by lyonet



Series: A Right Turn After Bad Idea [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7607548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“All this talk of real estate,” Morgana said, “it makes me want a game of Monopoly. Have you still got the board, Father?”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Uther said at once, recognising this statement for the challenge that it was. “Arthur, are you able to stay?”</p>
<p>This was Merlin’s chance to say that no, he had plans, he had urgent business elsewhere, he needed to wash his damn hair, but he was an innocent and thought this was the prelude to a family game night. Arthur agreed to stay. Vivian chirped, “Oh, how fun!” and kicked Morgana furiously under the table. Never again, she had said, never again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch Your Step

**Dinner No.1**

Vivian was an old hand at family infighting. She cut her teeth with the professionals. Between her mother’s razor-edged small talk and her father’s brand of aggressive joviality, she picked up techniques that would make a Borgia proud. For her parents she was the cookie cutter princess they had trained her to be, winning a string of awards for ballet and lacrosse and deportment class, and expertly guilting them both into buying her a fleet of Barbie cars. At school she was queen bee of an admiring court, ruling with an iron manicure.

Of course, her father had to spoil things by getting paranoid about her kissing boys, somehow convincing her mother that she needed to go the Isle of the Blessed to finish her education at Disir, the exclusive all-girls boarding school, in a bid to counteract the dread forces of puberty. Fortunately, Vivian was a) bisexual, and b) a queen bee WHEREVER SHE WENT, damn it. Her room-mate Sefa had proved an excellent lieutenant, eager to please, quite a good kisser and with an absolute gift at styling Vivian’s hair. Vivian: 10. Vivian’s dad: 0.

And apparently her own family’s point-scoring system wasn’t enough of a challenge, because she had chosen, of her own free will, to marry into the Pendragons, who preferred to express their affection through insults and/ or mild physical violence. Before the wedding, Morgana had considered taking her mother’s surname Lefay. It had been a time of redefinitions, the chance to turn into somebody new, or at least somebody who didn’t _sound_ like Uther Pendragon’s daughter.

In the end, though, she had kept the name Pendragon and Vivian had taken it as well. Partly because it was romantic, and partly out of cheerful spite, fully aware of how it would look in the tabloids. _Conservative leader’s daughter throws lavish lesbian wedding! Morgana Pendragon weds international supermodel Vivian Alined in private ceremony, see page 3._ Vivian and Morgana: 100. Uther Pendragon: 0.

Uther, though, was cannier than Vivian’s father. If his daughter had to have a ‘lavish lesbian wedding’, as he had come to accept she eventually would, Vivian was one hell of a catch and he was clear-sighted enough to know it. He had been quite civil in welcoming her to the family, ever the politician with his eye out for a useful alliance.

Merlin Emrys was another story.

To be honest, Vivian wasn’t sure what to make of Merlin herself. He wasn’t Arthur’s usual type. _Vivian_ was Arthur’s usual type, and while she’d moved on from him a long time ago, she couldn’t help running a few mental calculations to try and identify where the attraction lay. The blue eyes were quite pretty, but the total lack of athleticism, social ambition and sartorial sense left her stumped. It seemed Uther had been running calculations too and didn’t like the answers he’d come up with, because he’d invited his children and their partners to an official Family Dinner.

“Obviously it’s an interrogation,” Morgana said, when Arthur called her about it to compare theories. She walked around the bedroom, hunting for her hairbrush. “Look at the short notice. He’s cutting off escape routes.”

Vivian sat at her dressing table, applying a basic face of make-up. Short notice was nothing to an expert. She’d booked in a last minute session at Sefa’s salon to get her hair done in the loose ‘natural’ curls that suited her best, and had thrown together a look from the Unimpeachable Daughter-in-Law section of her wardrobe. White was good. It made her look sweet and angelic and threw Uther off. Finishing up, she stood up and gestured at Morgana to take her place in front of the mirror, so that she could start work on her while Morgana listened to Arthur fret.

“Oh, you hypocrite! If you’re not assuming the worst too, why are you calling me?” Morgana said indignantly. “I don’t want to talk to you now. Put Merlin on. I want to know what he thinks. Merlin? MERLIN, TAKE THE PHONE.”

Bent over Morgana, Vivian heard Arthur swear, then Merlin’s amused ‘hello?’ but was too busy considering lipstick tones to eavesdrop properly. With a sigh of resignation, she picked out the blood red that was Morgana’s favourite and made Morgana stop talking for a minute to apply it. “It’s not too late, you know,” Morgana said, when Vivian was done. “You could make a run for it. Emigrate. Australia might be safe.”

She reached sneakily for the open cosmetic case as she was speaking and Vivian smacked her hand, unimpressed. Morgana always overdid her eye-shadow if left to her own devices. “Nobility won’t get you anywhere,” Morgana said into the phone, closing her eyes sulkily to let Vivian get at the lids with a brush. “Uther eats significant others alive. Ours if he can, his own if he can’t, ask Arthur to tell you about Helen sometime. Oh, he already did? She was one of the nice ones.”

Vivian grabbed the phone off her. “Go away, Merlin, Morgana needs to get dressed. So should you.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Merlin said sweetly and hung up. Vivian eyed the phone suspiciously. Arthur did tend to go for sarcastic people, but that didn’t mean _she_ had to like them.

* * *

Not many men could say their home was literally a castle, and neither could Uther now that he had given the old family seat over to the National Trust, but his current residence was a luxurious modern bachelor pad with a stark black and white colour scheme that made it feel like he lived inside a giant chess board, and he didn’t seem too sad about the change.

Vivian and Morgana arrived first. They walked through the large white hall, under a glinting steel chandelier, into the living room, where Uther gave them drinks and asked polite questions about their honeymoon. Morgana resisted the urge to overshare (Vivian had worn spiky heels and sat close to make sure of it) and ten minutes of small talk in, Arthur and Merlin joined them. Arthur wore a crisp crimson shirt and tailored black trousers, and must have explained what ‘casual’ meant in Uther’s house, because Merlin had gone for a similar look, though somehow on him it looked slightly dishevelled. He smiled brightly at Uther and very nearly didn’t wince at the iron grip when he shook hands. Arthur kept an arm around him the whole time, like he thought Uther would give in to temptation and haul him off to a dungeon if he let go.

“A pleasure to see you again, Merlin,” Uther said coolly. “I trust you’re well?”

“I’m good,” Merlin said. “But I gave Arthur a cold last week and he’s still getting over it.”

“I’m fine,” Arthur said immediately, slightly hoarse. Merlin rolled his eyes. Uther looked on with a pinched expression, as this confirmed all his fears.

Dinner had been catered by a nearby restaurant – from the precisely arranged food, Vivian was sure she could guess which one – and was served by quietly efficient staff who then melted away like the Edwardian servants to which Uther no doubt aspired. Merlin stared after them in astonishment until Arthur elbowed him. There was a brief silence as everyone paused to admire the food (Vivian would have Instagrammed it under any other circumstances) and tasted it.

“How is work?” Uther asked Arthur. It was a still a delicate point in the family that Arthur had chosen to work for Annis Caerleon instead of following the athletic career Uther had originally planned for him (intended to segue into politics after a sufficient level of achievement), but overshadowed as it had been by Morgana’s wild fling with tabloid headlines, it had been mostly forgiven. Arthur answered with a couple of neutral, mildly amusing anecdotes about people Uther was unlikely to actually meet.

Uther didn’t ask about Morgana’s work. He didn’t understand what she did in Caerleon’s laboratories, always protesting his lack of a scientific mind, but Vivian simmered at the snub under her smile. He didn’t ask about Vivian’s job either; as her latest photography session had been a lingerie shoot, that was not likely to be a profitable conversation anyway. Merlin was not so lucky.

“Still – bar-tending, wasn’t it, Merlin?” Uther said, sipping at his wine.

“That’s right,” Merlin said. He was smiling, with about as much sincerity as Vivian. “But I’ve picked up another shift at the library, so I’m only at the Cavern twice a week now. I’d be happy to shout you a drink on the house, though, if you ever want to stop by.”

Vivian, who had been in the Cavern, snatched up her napkin and pressed it to her mouth. Arthur did not have such quick thinking and gulped back a laugh, making a choking noise.

“A kind offer,” Uther said, stony-faced behind his crystal wineglass.

The staff rematerialised to clear the dishes and serve the main course. Merlin leaned in to whisper something to Arthur, who replied with one eye on his father. Uther pretended not to notice, turning to talk to Morgana about an art exhibition he had recently opened. Art was one of the few subjects the two of them agreed upon, allowing peace to reign until dessert, when Uther turned to Merlin and asked, “You enjoy the arts, I imagine?”

Merlin’s mouth twitched, like he desperately wanted to give a response quite different from, “Yes.”

“Our first date was a play,” Arthur said lightly and Merlin glanced at him, ducking his head to hide a grin. “And he’s promised to take me to the next Shakespeare in the Park.”

As Uther had dragged both his children to Shakespeare plays since infancy and could quote huge chunks of _Hamlet_ when given the least encouragement, there was nothing he could say against that. “I assume you live in the city, Merlin,” he said, “but I don’t think Arthur mentioned where.”

There was a short uncomfortable silence. Merlin glanced at Arthur, who visibly thought twice then put a deliberate arm around Merlin’s shoulders and said, with breeziness that convinced absolutely nobody, “Actually, we’ve decided to move in together. He’s living with me until we find a new place. I was going to tell you about it when we’d settled on somewhere.”

It was difficult to tell whether Uther was genuinely displeased or secretly delighted he had something to be displeased about. “That’s very sudden,” he said, putting down his knife and fork. “And your apartment is so convenient to your work, Arthur, why would you leave?”

“It’s not convenient to Merlin,” Arthur said, already tensing.

“I’m sure Merlin understands,” Uther said meaningfully.

Merlin was looking between them with a frown, like he was watching a mildly insulting tennis match. Vivian was better versed in this particular subtext. What Uther was really saying was, _find a less demanding trophy partner_ ; also, _he’s not even a trophy partner, what are you thinking._ He might have given up on any fears that Merlin was a deep-cover sensationalist reporter, but gold-digging was still very much on the table.

“Anyway,” Arthur said, leaning back with taut nonchalance, “I want a garden.”

Merlin stopped frowning and looked incredulous instead. “Since when?”

“Flowers, herbs, that sort of thing,” Arthur continued.

“Oh, you mean those highly specific green things?” Merlin said. “You don’t even know what to do with the fully grown vegetables my mother gives you, how do you plan on growing them?”

“I didn’t say _I’d_ be growing them, I said I wanted a garden. That’s where you come in. Your mother has an amazing garden, you must have picked up something.”

They appeared to have forgotten that other people were present, entirely focused on their own conversation. It was only watching him like this, his whole face animated, that Vivian could see how subdued Merlin had been before. She glanced at Morgana for her take, and saw an ominously sweet look on her wife’s face.

“All this talk of real estate,” Morgana said, “it makes me want a game of Monopoly. Have you still got the board, Father?”

“Of course,” Uther said at once, recognising this statement for the challenge that it was. “Arthur, are you able to stay?”

This was Merlin’s chance to say that no, he had plans, he had urgent business elsewhere, he needed to wash his damn hair, but he was an innocent and thought this was the prelude to a family game night. Arthur agreed to stay. Vivian chirped, “Oh, how fun!” and kicked Morgana furiously under the table. Never again, she had said, _never again._

It did not take Merlin long to see his mistake. The Pendragons might choose to appear as civilised human beings with their nice clothes and nice hair, but underneath they were viciously competitive and any board game played with them was a brutal business. Vivian’s own competitive streak was aimed in an entirely different direction. She didn’t fuck about with paper money or little plastic houses for fun. It was easier to lose fast and disastrously, in her experience, and go in search of more wine while the board turned into a three-way battlefield.

It took her an hour to get away. In that space of time, Merlin had gone from cheerfully interested to openly dismayed; Uther and Morgana were taking savage delight in demanding rent off each other and Arthur was steadily investing in a terrifying array of hotels. Vivian threw her last property card onto the table with a sigh of relief, accepted Morgana’s promise to extract vengeance on her behalf and went off with the excuse of visiting the bathroom. She detoured in the gleaming showroom kitchen, opening the patio doors and stepping out for a stroll along the balcony.

She had been out there for ten minutes and was contemplating a return inside to make better friends with the open wine bottle on the kitchen counter when Merlin slipped out, eyes a bit wild.

“Did you make a break for it?” Vivian inquired.

“I gave Uther all my money, Arthur all my property and I think Morgana wanted my blood.” Merlin shivered in the chilly evening air. “Is it always like that?”

“You should see them at Scrabble,” Vivian said. “But Monopoly is a horror show. Morgana will regret this. You should make Arthur pay too, if you have any sense, you have to take a firm stand on these things or you’ll be enduring it the rest of your life.”

Perhaps her tone was unnecessarily acerbic. Merlin looked at her. “You don’t like me either,” he said, thoughtfully. “I know why Uther doesn’t, why you? I promise, I don’t want Arthur’s money.”

“That is obvious. You are disgustingly in love with him.” Vivian swept past into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine; Merlin’s bluntness earned him a glass too. “To be fair, he is being equally disgusting. I don’t dislike you. I just don’t like you yet. We’re not at that stage.”

Merlin sat on the counter, swinging his legs. “When we will get to that stage?”

“It took Morgana two years,” Vivian said, shrugging.

Merlin thought about that. “All right. That’s fair. Allies, though?” He smiled. It was, Vivian had to concede, a rather nice smile.

“Allies,” she agreed.

The Monopoly game turned into a bloodbath, as it always did. Morgana had made it her mission to beat Uther by the most humiliating margin possible, but he didn’t make it easy on her and by the time a winner emerged from the carnage of property cards (Arthur, who had snagged Park Road early on and grimly refused to give it up) the mood had turned irretrievably ugly. Vivian didn’t know what had been said while she and Merlin were not in the room – _that_ was an opportunity Uther could not have resisted – but Arthur’s mouth was very tight and Morgana’s cheeks were blotchy with suppressed rage.

“Thanks so much for inviting us,” Merlin said, towing Arthur towards the door.

“Dinner was delicious,” Vivian said, snatching up Morgana’s handbag as well as her own. “Come along, darling!” She waited until they were in the taxi before letting her sparkling smile go and glaring at Morgana. “ _Never again._ I mean it. No more Scrabble, no more Trivial Pursuit, _no more Monopoly,_ or you never get to have sex again.”

“I can’t believe I am related to that fucker,” Morgana said, staring out the window. It was not the abject apology Vivian had wanted, but would need to be dealt with first; Morgana’s hands were balled in her lap and her shoulders were rigid.

“Which one, your father?” Vivian clarified. Morgana nodded tightly. “Is this about Merlin or me?”

“Both. But it’s Merlin he’s on the warpath over.” Vivian rubbed her back with grudging sympathy and Morgana relaxed slightly, leaning in to her. “He’s such a damn snob. And he’s worse when it comes to his golden boy, he probably wanted Arthur to marry into the royal family or something. It would serve him right if I went to a journalist, sold all our salacious gossip.”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed, like she was now thinking about which journalist to approach, and Vivian smacked her arm. “That’s my family gossip too, now, so the answer is _no._ Take retribution the mature way, personal and in private.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Vivian said, “we’re going to hold a dinner party.”

 

**Dinner No.2**

Morgana could cook. It was not a fact she let on about, if she could help it, because then people expected her to do it, but in the end it was all just another science and the fundamental principles were not difficult to grasp. Time and inclination were more mercurial. For Vivian’s dinner party, she made a stir-fry, taking out her frustrations on an array of unsuspecting vegetables and rapidly reducing the lot to piles of colourful rubble. Dessert was chilling in shot glasses in the fridge. Morgana had suggest lacing Uther’s chocolate mousse with henbane. Vivian had not been amused.

Vivian had been in a brusque mood all week, in fact, ever since that disastrous game of Monopoly, which now Morgana thought about it had been a less than good idea, though irresistible at the time. But this dinner was Vivian’s plan; she had phoned around to make the invitations and whatever she had promised, threatened or bribed them with had worked, because Uther, Arthur and Merlin were all booked in for the night. It felt like the scene at the end of a mystery novel, when the detective calls together all the suspects to unveil the murderer – hence Morgana’s remark about henbane, she would always rather be the glamorous villain than the dogged detective – and didn’t Uther fit _that_ scenario beautifully, with his rampant classism masquerading as paternal concern. Morgana growled at the broccoli under her knife.

“Don’t do that,” Vivian snapped as she passed, carrying a fruit platter. “It’s unsettling.”’

The kitchen, dining and living spaces were delineated only by their furniture on the open plan ground floor. Morgana had wanted to live here because it was an urban eco-house, small and quirkily shaped to fit into the awkward plot of land, but very efficient. Vivian, who really belonged somewhere with sweeping staircases to march down, had settled for choosing and arranging all the furniture. The dining table was positioned directly under a light fixture shaped like a lightning bolt, making it appear like the gods were about to strike down whoever ate there; when Merlin arrived, he cast the ceiling a wary look as he took his seat.

The atmosphere as a whole was not friendly. Uther, without the advantage of home ground, was cautious and justifiably suspicious. Arthur was silent and unwilling to sit down; he walked around looking at Morgana’s art collection for a while with his hands jammed into his pockets until Merlin called him over.

“So,” Vivian said, beaming around the table, “Morgana and I are thinking about adoption.”

Uther froze with a forkful of rice halfway to his mouth. Arthur blinked. “Wow, that’s great,” Merlin said gamely into the startled silence. “Tell us more.”

“Oh, well, it’s very early in the process,” Vivian continued blithely. “But it’s important to Morgana, since that’s how she joined the family in the first place. Isn’t it, darling?”

Morgana beamed back at her. “So important. And what’s dealing with a bit of bureaucracy compared with labour, anyway? I thought you could give us some advice, Father, since you’ve already been through it all with me.”

It was considerably more complicated than that, as everyone around the table – except possibly Merlin – already knew. She had become Uther’s foster daughter aged eight, and found out she was Uther’s biological daughter aged twenty three. If it hadn’t been for Morgause tracking her down, he would probably have gone another few decades without mentioning that rather relevant fact. Morgana took a sip of wine, watching Uther over the rim. This was a Do Not Knock topic, and there was a certain delight in giving the rattling door a kick.

But Uther was made of strong stuff, and accustomed to people coming at him wanting difficult conversations. He skimmed straight over the jab. “That’s a very big decision,” he said, in a tone that sounded neutral unless you knew him well. “I’d have thought you would take more time for just the two of you, as you’re both so busy with work. Having a child is a very great commitment.”

It was an infuriatingly reasonable comment, so Morgana let Vivian handle it. This was all news they had been planning to share at some point anyway; the confrontational element was just a bonus. “It would definitely be too much,” Vivian said, “if I continued with modelling, but I’ve been thinking about giving that up for a while. There are other things I’d like to try.”

Arthur made a disbelieving face. “ _You’re_ giving up modelling. Seriously?”

“It’s called moving on, Arthur,” Vivian said crisply. “And I’m giving it up _for a while._ ”

“Does the fashion industry work like that?”

Morgana folded her arms. “Are you saying she will be less than spectacularly, unattainably beautiful in the next ten years?”

“No,” Arthur said, not being a total idiot, “of course she won’t be, stupid question.”

There was a silence as everyone pretended they really cared about the meal. Morgana kept a watchful eye on Uther as she ate. As a parent, he had rather been at a loss since both his children had outgrown the stage when he could lock them in their bedrooms for misbehaviour; the purpose of this dinner had been to drive home the reality that they’d also outgrown the point when he could vet their romantic partners, or any other major life decisions, but Morgana had an increasing certainty that not only would Uther fail to get the point, he would see everything that happened as a confirmation that he was in the right. That was how he was with political opponents too. He’d be coldly obdurate to everything they said and somehow, without actively having to lift a finger, would goad them into looking hysterical. He didn’t lose arguments because he just refused to have them.

Lack of conversation emptied the plates quickly. Morgana cleared the table while Vivian fetched dessert from the fridge, serving the chocolate mousse alongside her fruit platter, and Merlin left the table to use the bathroom. That was his excuse, anyway; he’d stolen it off Vivian, so Morgana was unconvinced. Arthur tapped his spoon fretfully against the rim of his dessert glass for a maddening two minutes before throwing it down and following Merlin upstairs.

“They really do adore each other,” Morgana said, putting down her spoon too. “It’s sweet.”

“They have known each other for four months,” Uther said, with withering calm. “It’s too early to tell whether they have very much in common.” He took a mouthful of chocolate mousse and added, “After all, Arthur’s judgement in this arena has been flawed before.”

Which was so true that if anybody else had said it, under any other circumstances, Morgana would have started up a round of Crazy Ex Bingo, but _she_ was allowed to talk shit about Arthur; Uther wasn’t. His idea of helping his son through a bad break-up was a bracing slap on the shoulder and a pityingly phrased ‘I told you so’.

“Merlin is different,” Morgana said sharply. “If you gave him a chance, you’d see that.”

“I’m sure Merlin is a very worthy young man, but hardly Arthur’s calibre.”

“What does that even mean? Arthur loves him. He loves Arthur. Where does ‘calibre’ come into it?”

“What I mean,” Uther said evenly, “is that it’s easy to mistake infatuation for something deeper, and do things that you might later regret. Arthur needs to be careful.”

“No, what he needs to do is follow his heart. _Damn_ the consequences!” Morgana stood up so fast the dishes all rattled. “You don’t get to decide for us what risks are worth taking, and you don’t get to be a gatekeeper to this family. You didn’t even like Gwen! How could you _not like Gwen_? She’s the most hard-working, loyal, dependable person I know, but you thought she was a bad influence because her dad made a couple of financial mistakes once upon a time. As if it matters – ”

“You think it doesn’t matter because you’ve always had money!” Uther pushed back his chair, finally losing his temper. “You’re spoiled, the pair of you, you have no idea the sacrifices I made. A little gratitude is all I ask, a little respect for the man who raised you – ”

It devolved from there. Morgana wasn’t aware of when Vivian left the table; all her concentration was fixed on finding the right words to crack open Uther’s high ground, like she could make him genuinely sorry if she just shouted loudly enough. By the time Uther stormed out, she was hoarse. Morgana kicked his chair violently and went to find Vivian, who, it turned out, had been upstairs for the last hour with Merlin and Arthur, doing shots in the spare bedroom based on the yelling echoing up to them. They were all a bit drunk. Merlin had fallen asleep with his head on Arthur’s lap.

“I hate him,” Morgana said, squeezing in on Arthur’s other side and tucking her face into Vivian’s shoulder. “I hate him so much.”

A few years ago she would already have been plotting an elaborate revenge scheme, or declaring her intention to cut Uther out of her life for good, or phoning Morgause to rant for half the night, each stoking the other’s fury higher and higher like chucking kerosene onto a bonfire. But none of those things had ever actually made her feel better. Vivian’s exasperated, vodka-laced sigh ruffled her hair. Arthur closed his eyes and said, “Is this another of your clubs?” which from him was almost an admission that right now he hated Uther too. Which was almost good enough.

The evening had been an unequivocal disaster, a good basis on which to decide to never have a family dinner ever again, which was why Morgana thought it might be a prank when Arthur texted her a month later with an invitation. “Do you think he’s joking?” she demanded of Vivian, who looked interestedly over her shoulder. “He _has_ to be joking.”

They went along anyway.

 

**Dinner No.3**

From Merlin’s tone when he gave the invitation, Hunith guessed she was being asked to dinner as moral support. It was the same tone he’d used as a little boy whenever Kilgarrah told a particularly traumatising bedtime story. Unfortunately, Uther Pendragon was a real man and Hunith could not banish him with a nightlight, but she could eat dinner with him, and assured her son she would.

She remembered meeting Uther back when Balinor had still been writing his speeches, though she doubted he remembered her after all this time – she doubted he’d remembered her five minutes after they were introduced, he had been brisk and harassed and completely disinterested in her existence. She remembered seeing Arthur and Morgana too, a little blonde boy with skinned knees and a girl with long black braids fencing in the office parking lot with sticks. Hunith had been rather sorry for them, because while she was sure Uther was much more interested in _their_ existence, she got the sense that brisk and harassed was his default setting.

Merlin had told her he was cooking, so she brought along a salad and a foil-covered baking tray of chopped vegetables ready to go in the oven when she arrived. The only one in the family with any real culinary expertise was Gaius, but Hunith could do quite a lot with vegetables. Merlin was already looking flushed and anxious when he opened the door to Arthur’s (enormous, expensive-looking, somewhat Spartan) flat, though his hot cheeks might also be attributable to the fresh love-bite visible just above his collar. Hunith kept her amusement to herself, kissed Merlin’s cheek and went to put her contributions in the kitchen, where Arthur was gazing uncertainly into the depths of a saucepan like he wasn’t entirely sure what it was for.

“Hello, Hunith,” he said, quickly dumping it in the sink. “I’m glad you could come.”

From the look on his face, she gathered he was hoping for moral support too. She wondered just how badly Uther had screwed up and what they expected her to do about it. “Would you like any help?” she asked. The overcrowded stove-top looked like a good place to start.

“No, we’re fine,” Arthur lied politely.

“Please help, we don’t know what we’re doing,” Merlin said over him.

They conducted a survey of the saucepans while Hunith’s tray of vegetables baked, reached a consensus on what was salvageable and what wasn’t (“you told me you could cook, Merlin!” “I said I could _mostly_ cook, you’re the one who wanted a _specific recipe_ ”) and dinner was nearly ready when the next guests arrived. Morgana had grown up into a sophisticated, slightly sullen-looking young woman who brightened with interest when she was introduced to Hunith; Vivian was a bored-faced blonde who gave every appearance of being absorbed in her phone but was paying a lot more attention than she wanted to let on.

Hunith looked around at them and realised nobody really wanted to be here. It was like her first dinner with Balinor’s family all over again, when she’d had to handle his godfather Kilgarrah, his uncle Taliesin and his very eccentric grandfather, who insisted on being called Dragoon. It had been the sort of experience that Hunith’s own mother used to call ‘character-building’. But she had survived that dinner party – even Taliesin’s dreamy predictions of an oncoming apocalypse – and she planned on getting through this one too. A bit of gentle prodding got Morgana talking about her job, the science of which was fascinating. Morgana was enthusiastically explaining the experiments she was running into a new way of harnessing hydropower when another knock sounded on the door and Uther came in.

He didn’t want to be here either, that much was clear from the stilted round of greetings, but he _was_ here and that had to mean something. Hunith said hello, Uther shook hands with no visible recognition and they all sat down around a very beautiful antique table. The discreet dash for seats left Hunith on Uther’s left and Arthur on his right, with Morgana seizing the chair on Hunith’s other side and Merlin sitting opposite with Arthur. Vivian rolled her eyes and took the last available spot.

“Oh, Merlin,” Hunith said, “I forgot to ask, how’s Freya? I haven’t heard from her lately.”

“She’s good, she’s adopted another cat actually. A huge tortoiseshell called Valkyrie.”

“Freya is a friend of yours?” Uther asked Merlin, with the air of a man trying hard to communicate in another language.

“Yeah. She works at the Cavern with me,” Merlin said. There was a defensive edge to the statement. “We went to school together.”

“She’s a riot,” Morgana said. “And a home-wrecker, she’s convinced my wife to take up roller derby. Next thing you know there’ll be tattoos and folk rock festivals.” She sounded rather pleased.

“Wait, you three are still – ” Merlin began, then changed his mind and backpedalled rapidly. “Yes! A riot, that’s Freya, does anyone want more salad? Garlic bread? Cauliflower?”

“And you, Hunith,” Uther said, taking his disapprovingly bewildered stare off Merlin, “what do you do?”

“I teach science,” Hunith said. It probably helped that she didn’t need this man’s good opinion for anything, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, he was floundering so badly. “This week my class has been building a volcano.”

“How – impressive,” Uther offered, doubtfully.

“They all thought so, it’s so much fun watching the lava,” Hunith agreed, helping herself to more baked potato. “Though there’s always one child who wants to recreate Pompeii and gets red slime all over themselves. Merlin did, when he was in my class.”

“No childhood stories!” Merlin protested.

“I’m sure you have some about Arthur and Morgana,” Hunith said, smiling at Uther and waiting to see whether he’d grab a branch when it was waved around under his nose. For a minute she was quite sure he wouldn’t. His face tightened, like he was going to say something abrupt and possibly rude – then he pulled himself together and said, “They had very little interest in volcanoes. Morgana, however, was obsessed with snakes. She hid a python in the attic for three months. Arthur found it when he went up to look for his cricket gear.”

“I told him not to go poking around up there,” Morgana said sharply.

“You didn’t say there was a bloody snake,” Arthur retorted.

“Well, we never got mice.”

“That is _not_ the point.”

Merlin quietly slipped off and came back with plates of cheesecake. Uther was watching his children argue with an expression that would have been fondness in someone less emotionally constipated. Morgana, having scored a winning point off Arthur by bringing up the stuffed bunny he carried around when he was five (Hunith was not sure why this was a winning point, but it obviously was), sat back with a satisfied air and glanced down at her plate like she’d only now registered how much of the meal had passed.

“Anyway,” she said, to no one in particular, “snakes are perfect, fight me.”

“I don’t think it’s a pistols at dawn situation, darling,” Vivian drawled. “Anyway, you have dragons now.”

“Dragons are perfect,” Merlin said at once, and Morgana fist-bumped him across the table.

“Well, I’m afraid I’ll need to head off soon,” Hunith said. “It’s a bit of a drive home. I’ll help with the dishes first – ”

Merlin and Arthur chorused a refusal, quickly snatching dishes off the table so she couldn’t get at them. Hunith followed Merlin into the kitchen anyway, where she’d left her handbag. He put down his stack of plates and turned to her, twisting his hands nervously.

“I’m moving in with Arthur,” he said.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Hunith said dryly. “I hope it works out, sweetheart, you know I like him. If you want any help with the move, give me a call. And don’t lose my baking tray, I’ll have that back the next time you come over.”

“Uther doesn’t like me,” Merlin said, very quietly, his eyes on the empty doorway.

“Well, you don’t have to like him either,” Hunith pointed out. “A big part of getting along with family, yours and other people’s, is knowing how much distance you need to make it work. For instance, Kilgarrah.”

Merlin laughed despite himself. “He’s not that bad.”

“He is,” Hunith said firmly, “but I know how much of him I can stand, and more importantly, I can say no to him, so it’s all right. Thank goodness Taliesin lives in Wales. He’s more direful than Kilgarrah but Balinor thinks the world of him.” She picked up her handbag and gave Merlin a hug. “Look after yourself, sweetheart, and I mean it about calling me.”

She hugged Arthur, and then Morgana, because she looked like she needed it. Vivian did not seem like a hugger, so she got a smile and a wave. Uther helped Hunith into her coat, all formal dignity, and offered to see her to her car on his own way out. She accepted, wondering what it was he wanted to say where his children wouldn’t hear. He didn’t leave her waiting long.

“You’re Balinor Emrys’ wife,” he said.

“Ex-wife,” she said mildly. “We divorced nearly twenty years ago. Is that why Merlin thinks you don’t like him? He didn’t know about all that history until after he started seeing Arthur, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem for them.”

Uther gave her a long appraising look. “I see you’ve made up your mind.”

“Yes,” Hunith said. “I love my son and I like yours.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Uther said severely.

“That’s the important bit, though.” Hunith reached her car and opened the door. Uther Pendragon’s issues were his own, and not her problem – not Merlin’s problem either, or Arthur’s for that matter – but she couldn’t resist adding, “Balinor hates all this too. I hope he’ll get over it. What’s the point in being grown-ups otherwise?”

Uther did not look like he appreciated her sense of humour, but closed the car door for her. Arthur had learned his sense of etiquette here. There must be something going for the man. “Goodbye, Hunith,” he said resignedly. “I expect I will be seeing you again.”

Hunith turned her key. “Goodbye, Uther. I expect you will.”

 


End file.
